{"id":706985,"date":"2026-04-10T00:27:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706985\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T00:27:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T00:27:40","slug":"lsu-womens-basketball-loses-starting-point-guard-to-portal-lsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706985\/","title":{"rendered":"LSU women’s basketball loses starting point guard to portal | LSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

LSU women’s basketball<\/a> guard Jada Richard<\/a> plans to enter the transfer portal, a source confirmed Thursday.<\/p>\n

Richard, an Opelousas native, started 34 of the 35 games the Tigers played this past season as part of a breakout campaign. She finished second on the team in minutes played, and she averaged 9.5 points per contest while shooting 45% from the field and 40% from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

Only Flau\u2019jae Johnson, Mikaylah Williams and MiLaysia Fulwiley scored in double figures more times in 2025-26 than Richard, who posted 19 10-point games and two 20-point showings.<\/p>\n

Coach Kim Mulkey<\/a> told WAFB-TV<\/a> on April 4 that she expected to lose only one potential returner to the portal this cycle: freshman point guard Divine Bourrage<\/a>. Since then, though, LSU has seen two players who were expected to play significant roles next season decide to test the market. Freshman guard Bella Hines<\/a> announced Tuesday that she planned to transfer. Then Richard chose to enter the portal on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Bourrage, Hines and Richard each signed with LSU as high school recruits.<\/p>\n

ESPN said that Richard \u2014 a former Lafayette Christian Academy star and Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year \u2014 was the 90th-best prospect in her class, which means that she\u2019s one of the nine top-100 players who have signed with the Tigers across the last three recruiting cycles.<\/p>\n

Six of those players have now decided to enter their names into the transfer portal. Richard is one of them, though she\u2019s the first starter of the bunch to look elsewhere. The other five either came off the bench or struggled to crack Mulkey\u2019s regular rotation.<\/p>\n

Richard hardly saw the floor during her freshman season. That year, she averaged fewer than five minutes per game from the start of SEC play through the end of the NCAA Tournament.<\/p>\n

Ahead of her sophomore season, Richard improved her game to the point at which she could operate as LSU\u2019s lead ballhandler \u2014 a job that other, more experienced players have struggled to manage in previous years.<\/p>\n

Richard, though, looked like a natural fit for the role. She\u2019s a sharp outside shooter, a disruptive defender and willing passer \u2014 one who proved that she could both feed the post and set up Johnson, Williams and Fulwiley on the wings. She finished her sophomore year with more than twice as many assists as turnovers, and she could\u2019ve played the position for two more seasons.<\/p>\n

But now it appears that Richard wants to play elsewhere, which leaves LSU with a need to find a new point guard.<\/p>\n

The Tigers are also losing senior guard Kailyn Gilbert<\/a> to the portal. She played a key role off the bench during the 2024-25 season and decided to return for the 2025-26 campaign but played in only the first five games of the year before stepping away for personal reasons.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, out of LSU\u2019s four portal entrants, only Bourrage has found a new school. She\u2019s signed with Illinois.<\/p>\n

This year, the transfer portal is open for all Division I players through April 20.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LSU women’s basketball guard Jada Richard plans to enter the transfer portal, a source confirmed Thursday. Richard, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-706985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116377581247338981","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}